


Speak the language of love

by iamtheenemy (Steph)



Series: Coda series [4]
Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: M/M, Post-Episode Season 4 Episode 9: The Olive Branch, post-episode
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-10-29 21:23:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17815757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Steph/pseuds/iamtheenemy
Summary: David should just let it stay like this. His plan worked, Patrick forgave him. He should congratulate himself on a job well done, go back to his gorgeous boyfriend’s house and have vigorous ‘just got back together’ sex. The David of four years ago -- hell, the David of fourmonthsago -- would have done that, and yet...





	Speak the language of love

**Author's Note:**

> I'm just getting into Schitt's Creek now, so sorry about being a year late on this post-ep!

They ended up on the floor. Not to have sex -- they were in the shop in front of giant picture windows, for one thing, and David had no desire to give Twyla and everyone else on their way to the cafe a free show. But somehow, after the song had ended, Patrick and David had tumbled out of that little wooden chair and ended up on their backs, shoulders and thighs touching, as they stared up at the ceiling.

Patrick had one arm tucked under his own head and the other stretched between them. He looked happy in a way that David had seen plenty of times in their four months together, but wasn’t sure he’d ever see again.

David should just let it stay like this. His plan worked, Patrick forgave him. He should congratulate himself on a job well done, go back to his gorgeous boyfriend’s house and have vigorous ‘just got back together’ sex. The David of four years ago -- hell, the David of four _months_ ago -- would have done that, and yet...

It was a terrible idea -- which could be the name of David’s juicy tell-all autobiography, should he ever decide to write one, and watch out, Paris Hilton if he ever got the time -- but he couldn’t seem to let it go, not with the nagging guilt still gnawing at his insides.

“Uh…” he started, and then abruptly snapped his mouth shut and cleared his throat. 

A moment later, he shifted so that his whole body was facing Patrick. When Patrick met his eye, he lost his nerve and flopped back down on his back.

“David…” Patrick finally said, sounding his usual combination of amused and indulgent. “I could be reading the signs wrong here, but it seems like you might have something you want to tell me.”

“No...yes...just…” David got up on his knees, and Patrick did the same. 

“What?” Patrick asked.

“So, when the whole,” David waved his hands expressively in the air, “Rachel debacle happened, you were really honest with me, and I feel like, in the interest of fairness, I should be honest now. With you.”

Patrick raised on an eyebrow. “David, if this is going to be you telling me about all of the people you’ve been with, maybe now is not the time.”

David wanted to run his hands through his hair in frustration, but it had taken him an hour to make it look that good, and things weren’t that bad yet. “No, that’s not...Ok, I can’t do it like this.”

He stood up, and Patrick followed.

“Like what?” Patrick asked.

“Like this,” David said again, pointing back and forth between the two of them. “Just...turn around.”

“Turn around?” Patrick asked incredulously. 

“I can’t say this with you looking at me. You have to turn around -- no, not there!” David added, when Patrick went to turn. “You’ll be able to see my reflection through the window. Here.” He put his hands on Patrick’s shoulders and turned him so that he was facing the counter away from the windows.

“Alright, now what?” Patrick asked.

“Now…” David took a deep breath as he stared at the smooth lines of the back of Patrick’s dark blue shirt. He opened up his mouth but nothing came out.

“David?”

David spun on his heel so that he was looking at the wall on the other side of the store. “Ok.”

“So now we’re both turned around.”

“Yes.” David twisted his fingers together and stared at the ground.

“I feel like I’m on a game show.”

“Do you want to hear this or not?” David asked.

“I don’t know!” Patrick said, and David heard his hands hit his thighs in frustration. “I don’t know what you’re trying to tell me. Because it kind of seems like you surprised me with that performance, made out with me for a while, and now you’re about to break up with me.”

David spun around. “I’m not going to break up with you!”

Patrick turned as well, and the expression on his face, apprehensive and confused, hurt David. “Well, can you blame me for being concerned here?”

David made up the distance between them in two steps and cupped Patrick’s face in his hands, touching their foreheads together.

“The last thing I want to do is break up with you.” 

Patrick took a deep breath and wrapped his hands around both of David’s wrists, leaning into the touch.

“Ok, good. That’s so good, David. Then what do you have to tell me?” Patrick asked.

David squeezed his eyes shut before answering, “Turn around.”

Patrick made a frustrated noise. “David…”

“I know! I’m sorry, I’m so bad at this, I’m sorry. But please, please turn around.”

“Fine,” Patrick said. He moved away from David and returned to looking at the sales counter. 

David pivoted back the other way and nervously began to fiddle with one of his silver rings.

After a moment of silence, Patrick said, “If you’re not going to --”

“You fought for me,” David said in a rush. Patrick went silent behind him. “You’re right, I’ve been with a lot of people. _A lot._ Some might say too many. But I’ve never been the guy that you fight for. I’m the guy you fuck because he gives you free E on a cruise in Cabo, whose credit card you steal to take to the mainland and buy a $500 bong before he realizes the card is gone and calls the bank to cancel it.”

“That is...very specific.”

“Yes, it is, Patrick. And you’re going to need to not talk while I get this out, ok?”

“Sorry, continue.”

“This last week...I was selfish and didn’t think about your feelings. I mean, hello! Have we met?” David let out a self-deprecating laugh and plowed forward, “But every time you texted me or sent me a gift, it wasn’t about the gifts themselves -- ok, it was a little about the gifts, the gifts were perfect. Did I mention I love the bracelet? -- but it was more about the way that they made me feel. Even, god, that stupid cookie. Because no one’s ever cared for me that way before. Not ever. Um, so that’s not an excuse, I’m just trying to explain.” 

Patrick kept quiet, seeming to understand that he wasn’t done. David’s throat felt thick and he surreptitiously wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his shirt. 

“Oh god, how do people do this? Ok.” He cleared his throat. “I am thirty… _ish_ years old, and I’ve spent most of those years disgustingly rich. I was awash in designer clothes, famous friends, and expensive vacations.” David smoothed down the material of his shirt and steeled himself. “But you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, and it’s not even close, so...”

Behind him, Patrick sucked in a breath but thankfully didn’t speak.

“Well, you and Stevie, and maybe these handmade leather slippers I got from Milan? But you’re at the top. And when Rachel came, part of me was relieved, I think? Like, I’d been waiting so long for the other Italian slipper to drop, and here it was. A cute, little redheaded fiancée, your high school sweetheart, a _woman_ , who came all the way out here to win you back. That’s what was going to finally end this -- us. At least I knew, and didn't have to worry anymore.” 

David was finding it hard to speak around the lump in his throat, but he pressed on, knowing his choked voice gave away the fact that he was crying. “But you didn’t leave and go back with her. You stayed, and you fought for _me_ , and you sent _me_ bracelets and chocolates and wine and…” 

He looked down and saw that his hands were red and blotchy. A glance to his left at the glass door, the pitch black night making it the perfect reflective surface, found that his face was equally as flushed. 

“...and I seem to have developed some sort of emotions-based rash. I’m literally allergic to feelings. So since I have thoroughly destroyed this olive branch, I’m just going to…”

He turned to the door, intending to make a fast getaway while Patrick’s back was turned and eat these feelings away at the motel, when he froze at the sight of Patrick looking straight at him, his expression soft and full of awe.

“Oh god.” David wiped furiously at his wet face. “How...how long have you been staring at me?”

“Since the day we met,” Patrick answered, the side of his mouth quirking up in a small grin. 

“Patrick…” David whispered. His heart was beating so quickly, he would have thought he was halfway to a panic attack if not for the happiness welling throughout his whole body, making him feel weightless.

Patrick crossed the distance between them and kissed David slowly and deeply, in that possessive way he had that always made David shiver.

When he pulled back, it took David a few seconds for his eyes to flutter open, but when they did, Patrick was smiling gently up at him. 

“All those other people were assholes and morons.” 

David scoffed with more bravado than he felt. “You don’t have to tell me that.”

“I think I do,” Patrick said. “I think you need to understand that you deserve so much better than them.”

David felt the sting of tears behind his eyes again, and he blinked rapidly. “Maybe we should turn around again,” he said.

“No,” Patrick said with a little laugh, and he held onto David’s face for emphasis. “No, David Rose. You are going to be looking straight at me when I tell you that I’m crazy about you. That you’re _worth_ fighting for.”

“Well.” David cleared his throat. “I think you’re worth fighting for too.”

“Good,” Patrick grinned. “Now can we please go back to my place so that we can have reunion sex?”

“God, yes.”


End file.
